‘’IF anything in this life is certain, if history has taught us anything, it is that you can kill anyone” – The Godfather Part II

At the clear risk of contradicting Michael Corleone, history has taught us more than that.

It has, for example, taught us that sex and drugs will forever be commodities to be bought and sold. Prohibition might slow that trade but nothing has come close to stopping it.

There is a debate to be had – the United States is having it at the moment – about whether the war on drugs is worth fighting. But even its supporters no longer claim it can be won.

Similarly with what we like to call the oldest profession. We will not stop it.

But we can strive to protect prostitutes from the violence of inadequate men.

Given that, is there any real point in shutting down Edinburgh’s licensed sex saunas?

Stephen House, the former chief of Strathclyde and now boss of Scotland’s new single police force, is apparently determined that a blind eye will no longer be turned and these dozen or so saunas will close.

It is hard not to feel that he is keen to show his Edinburgh officers what they should have been doing all these years.

Stephen House (Image: Phil Dye/Daily Record)

Because clearly, Glasgow’s zero tolerance of licensed brothels has made the city a world leader in eradicating prostitution.

Who knew? Certainly, the red-light drags are still walked by those women, too drugged or damaged, to work in the private flats and brothels scattered around the city.

Now, we have no truck for Edinburgh’s sauna bosses but they have a commercial interest in keeping their neighbours relaxed, the council content and the police placated.

The “Don’t ask, don’t tell” stance of the city council handing out public entertainment licences to brothels is, of course, hypocritical, but that does not necessarily make it wrong.

Will Mr House’s hardline enforcement of the law be any better? Will it do any more to protect these women?

Of course, Edinburgh has its streetwalkers too, the women too addicted and too chaotic to get work in a sauna.

And, no doubt, they will have their private flats and their gangsters too.

Mr House can argue that, given sex saunas have not eradicated the unlicensed sex trade in the capital, what is the point of them?

He could argue that but he will be faced by a great many people who know Edinburgh far better than him and who have wrestled with these issues far longer than him.

One of them is MSP Margo MacDonald, who tells us today that she will be raising Friday’s sauna raids at parliament.

She claims Police Scotland’s hardline blitz on the saunas is a dangerous throwback that will only put prostitutes in more danger.

And, Mr House, if history has taught us one more thing, it is that you do not want to pick a fight with Margo MacDonald.